Social and Structural Patterns of Drought‐Related Water Conservation and Rebound

Abstract

Water use practices and conservation are the result of complex sociotechnical interactions of political, economic, hydroclimatic, and social factors. While the drivers of water demand have been extensively studied, they have traditionally been applied to models that assume stationary relationships between these various factors, and usually do not account for potential societal changes in response to increased scarcity awareness. For example, following a period of sustained low demand such as during a drought, communities often increase water use during a hydrologically wet period, a phenomenon known as “rebounding” water use. Previous experiences show the extent of this rebound is not a straightforward function of policy and efficiency improvements, but may also reflect short‐term or long‐lasting change in community behavior, which are not easily captured by models that assume stationarity. In this work, we develop a system dynamics model to represent water demand as a function of both structural and social factors. We apply this model to the analysis of three diverse water utilities in the San Francisco Bay Area between 1980 and 2017, identifying drought response trends and drivers over time. Our model is consistent with empirical patterns and historical context of water use in California, and provides important insights on the rebound phenomenon that can be extended to other locations. This comparative assessment indicates that policies, public outreach, and better data availability have played a key role in raising public awareness of water scarcity, especially with the raise of the internet era in recent years.

Spatial and Seasonal Response of Municipal Water Use to Weather across the Contiguous U.S.

“…Physical characteristics of residences, including household size, lot size, presence of a swimming pool, and land cover factors have also been shown to have significant effects on water use (Mayer et al 1999;Wentz and Gober 2007;Balling et al 2008;Gage and Cooper 2015). Household income, measures of water price, and billing structure-type, with binary variables for restriction periods, rebates, and other utility-controlled factors also affect residential water use (Kenney et al 2008;Zapata 2015;Brelsford and Abbott 2017;Gonzales and Ajami 2017). Household income, measures of water price, and billing structure-type, with binary variables for restriction periods, rebates, and other utility-controlled factors also affect residential water use (Kenney et al 2008;Zapata 2015;Brelsford and Abbott 2017;Gonzales and Ajami 2017).…”

“…Water use has been found to have spatially clustered patterns according to household and income characteristics (Wentz and Gober 2007;Gage and Cooper 2015). Household income, measures of water price, and billing structure-type, with binary variables for restriction periods, rebates, and other utility-controlled factors also affect residential water use (Kenney et al 2008;Zapata 2015;Brelsford and Abbott 2017;Gonzales and Ajami 2017).…”

An Urban Sociohydrologic Model for Exploration of Beijing's Water Sustainability Challenges and Solution Spaces

“…For example, Chen et al () validated their model results using newspaper articles collected from The New York Times. Gonzales and Ajami () validated their model results using the relative number of Google searches for the term “California drought.” Elshafei et al () validated their results using water‐related newspaper articles in Australia (Wei et al, ). In our model, the evolution of community sensitivity is partially (if not completely) confirmed by newspaper articles in the People's Daily (Chinese mainstream newspaper), which reflect evolution of human perceptions of water shortage and other anecdotal evidence that represents human response behaviors in respect of water resources management (see section for details).…”

“…In response to these adverse impacts, city governments are usually forced to take remedial efforts from both the demand and supply viewpoints. For example, when cities are hit by severe droughts, measures such as promotion of water‐saving technology and dampening of the rate of immigration might be taken (Garcia et al, ; Gonzales & Ajami, ). In addition, alternative water sources may be exploited such as temporary transfers of water from neighboring catchments, for example, using trucks (Srinivasan et al, ), or large‐scale, permanent interbasin transfers such as what happened in China with the implementation of the South to North Water Diversion Project (SNWDP; Zhao et al, ).…”

Shifting landscapes: decoupled urban irrigation and greenness patterns during severe drought

“…The 2012-2016 California drought was one of the most extreme in the state's history (US Geological Survey: California Water Science Center 2018) and resulted in widespread water supply challenges. These conditions were accompanied by unprecedented state-level political actions, considerable news media coverage, and elevated public awareness, which in turn led to high levels of drought saliency, or societal prominence, and which has been linked to water conservation Ajami 2017, Gonzales andAjami 2017b). There are currently no standard metrics for quantifying drought saliency; researchers have used a variety of proxies such as news media coverage or internet search frequency, both which provide insights into peak events and periods of heightened awareness (Quesnel and Ajami 2017, Treuer et al 2017, Gonzales and Ajami 2017b, Roby et al 2018, Kam et al 2019.…”